Ertl Amputation Day 8 Part II

Thursday, June 12 2008 -

Part one is here.

We made it home after about 3 hours of driving. The weather was thunderstorms and lightning; unusual for this time of year. Carol slept most of the way home or at least sat in the back seat pretending to sleep.

She is doing really well so far. As long as she is horizontal the pain is very manageable, but when she stands the blood rushes to the stump and then the pain gets bad. She's spent most of the day on the futon reading a book and relaxing along with her new best friend the pig...

You see she got a vacuum pump to take home. It is attached to the wound and basically keeps a vacuum (duh). Well the portable one makes this pig grunting noise every few seconds. We've been trying to come up with a good name all day: Wilbur and Miss Piggy came to mind as did Bacon and Breakfast.

Dr. Ertl was not really happy with how the wound is healing. Carol had some scars from a burn on the back of her calf and the wound isn't closing up right where those scars are. For now we are in a wait and see mode. There will be a nurse that will come over every 3 days to change the vacuum bandage and check her out. She will have another appointment with Dr. Ertl in 7-10 days. Hopefully by that time the wound will have healed much better than it has so far. The time to get a prosthetic is usually around 2 months, but so far we are behind on the healing process so it may take a little longer. There is a chance she may have to go back to have some of the scar tissue removed, which of course would set us back even further.

Apparently while I was getting the car at the hospital some lady asked Carol what happened. That led to a discussion amongst us, while driving home, about what she should tell people:

  • Shark attack
  • Aliens
  • Alligator
  • Freak industrial accident

You get the picture. We decided she should tell everyone a different story and see how long it takes before people begin to notice.

Here's the pictures I took right before we left this morning.

P1000693 P1000694